Support for Entrepreneurs from YTU Yıldız Technopark and Microsoft

At the Demo Day event organised in cooperation with YTU Yıldız Technopark and Microsoft for Startups, 10 entrepreneurs told investors about their projects. Through the event organized with the aim of bringing the entrepreneur pool together, it will be ensured that all startups benefit from a wide networking platform.

Yıldız Technical University (YTU) Yıldız Technopark and Microsoft for Startups are implementing a series of events that will enable all start-ups within their organization to benefit from a wide networking platform by signing a strategic cooperation in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Thanks to the events organized to bring together Founders Hub, which is a Microsoft for Startups initiative and supports startups from the idea stage to the implementation stage, and the YTU Yildiz Technopark entrepreneur pool, it will be ensured that all startups benefit from a wide networking platform. Within the scope of the events, startups that are members of the Founders Hub get the chance to meet with investors at regular intervals through Demo Days to be organized by YTU Yıldız Technopark. Microsoft will also organize technical workshops for entrepreneurs within Technopark.

Entrepreneurs made a presentation to investors at the Demo Day event organized at YTU Yıldız Technopark Davutpasa campus within the scope of the cooperation. To the event where entrepreneurs had the opportunity to introduce their initiatives; YTU Rector Prof. Dr. Tamer Yılmaz, Microsoft Turkey Executive Vice President responsible for Marketing and Operations Münir Kundakçı and many investors attended.

"We are the University whose Students and Academicians Found the Most Companies"

YTU Rector, Prof. Dr. Tamer Yılmaz stated that they are very excited to be in cooperation with Microsoft and said, “YTU Startup House is a Yıldız Technical University brand. We have a very good incubation center. We are the university whose students and academics establish the most companies. That's the source of our success. We produce a lot of patents. We are an R&D University, but our description is a little different. We describe it as research, innovation, technology, and commercialization. If there is no innovation, that is if there is no product and there is no commercialization at the end of the product, if you have not established a company and you have not been able to access the funds, we are saying that the R&D has not been completed, and we are trying to do it in this manner. We have invested in 14 startups and incubation companies this year. We will increase both the number and the amount in 2023. We are very good in the 4 verticals. I think that our gaming vertical has been very effective in making Turkey so successful, especially in gaming. We are also very good at fintech. There again, the value of our top 10 companies reached 500-600 million dollars. This is not only for young people, friends over a certain age should not lose their courage.”

"We Provide Essential Support at Founders Hub"

Speaking at the event, Microsoft Turkey Marketing and Operations Vice President Munir Kundakci said, "As we understand new initiatives well, which of our customers, where, how can we better introduce them and how can we help them grow and develop? We are here to answer these questions. Essentially, we provide several supports. We have a program called Microsoft For Startup. In this context, we have a program called Founders Hub. We are providing very important support in this program.” Münir Kundakçı explained their contributions in the following way:

“First of all, we say, ‘If you are an entrepreneur, we will help you develop your new products. Here we provide Azure credits and some licenses on the visual studio. We provide free streaming licenses for some services that programmers use a lot, such as GetUp. At the same time, we would like to say that ‘we will also give you the tools you need to manage your business well’. Here we provide Microsoft 365 licenses, licenses that will support CRM and sales-side processes by dynamics. That's not all we offer, we also say that ‘You need technical support to benefit from all of these. Let us support you to get the architecture of your software right and the problems you will encounter while developing them, and at the same time, if you get stuck on any issue, don't spend a huge amount of time to solve it, save time and come to us again.’ Then we say; ‘It takes effort to create and develop a company, and someone else's experiences are very valuable here, and we can also give you mentoring support. More or less, this was the Founders Hub's frame. Apart from that, the biggest difference of our company is that we have a very strong corporate sales network all over the world. If the resulting solutions can meet the needs of our customers, this will be one of the very important decoupling services that we provide to bring the customer and the enterprise together. The cooperation we have with Yıldız Technical University is very valuable to us, so we are focusing a little more on here, but the programs I mentioned are open to every initiative. There is an application process. Everyone who goes through this application process can benefit from this. At the same time, all of the services I mentioned are free.”